Bluetooth Scout II

This 3D project is a collaboration of two brothers. We started on our Instructables journey together over 5 years ago with “From Idea to Production - Cryptex”; https://www.instructables.com/id/From-IDEA-to-PROD... and combined we now have over 20 projects on Instructables most of them solo efforts.

Currently we are building/combining three real Scout II's into two complete vehicles so we do have International Harvester on the brain. That being said one of us wanted to make a 3D model of a Scout II as close as his skills would allow. While at the same time the other brother was purchasing 3D files and building two Bluetooth radios into a Scout II model. When we discovered that both were working on a similar project it seemed logical to us that with a 3D Printing contest running on Instructables we should combine efforts and make a joint project out of it. We did not track the hours invested, but there were well over 40 just in the design. Follow this with printing, paint, and assembly. Probably something like 40 hours for each of us by the time this Instructable is published.

Supplies

A 3D printer - Dremel Idea Builder and Tronxy X5S

Slicer program - Cura 4.4

Filament - 33CD "Silk Red" PLA, as well as Black, White, and Orange PLA

A Bluetooth Stereo Kit. We used DW-CT10-BT

Super glue or 5-minute epoxy

Paint - We used enamel paints primarily, but acrylic or spray paint works too.

Soldering iron and supplies. Weller Cordless Rechargeable Iron BL60MP

Two small ⅛ x 1/16 inch neodymium rare earth magnets to hold grill in place.

Drill and drill bits

M3 Screws

2mm Plexiglass, 4x6 inches, 2 ea.

Step 1: Design

The goal here was to make as close of a model to a Scout II as we could from pictures, within the time frame that we had available to us. We wanted it to print flat and without supports. We also wanted it scaleable and printable even on smaller 3D printer build platforms.

This model is designed to be printed in about 60 pieces and assembled with glue. We used a gap filling cyanoacrylate glue (super glue).

Everything you see here is designed by us with the exception of the tires. Credit for the original design of them goes to Nutdanai Champrasit on GrabCAD. BFGoodrich KO2 That being said we spent a large amount of time making the tires function for this build. The tires were sized and modified to fit the speakers inside. To do so meant leaving the back open. The letters on the tire were also exaggerated to allow printing with a 0.4mm nozzle. To keep tire size down, the magnets of the speaker are allowed to protrude through the back of the tire. A tire mount that encloses the speaker was designed to house the speaker and then screw into the inside of the tire.

The body parts were all designed in Tinkercad. The topper design was started in MS Paint and then finished in Tinkercad by “filling in” the shape. Modifications to some of the STL files were made with Google Sketchup, which allowed from grabbing portions of the design and stretching or offsetting as needed. This proved handy with fixing the letters on the tires, moving mounting holes when an error was made, and pulling angles into things as needed.

The first topper design looked too much like a Scout 800. So we took a side shot photo of a Scout II, cut the topper out of the photo and dropped it into Paint. We then used Paint and saved the image as a 16 color bitmap. Changing it to just 16 colors made it easy to quickly remove unwanted reflections. We then used an online image conversion program to change the BMP file to an SVG file. That file then was placed into Tinkercad where the outline of the topper and of the window were filled in with shapes. That did not give us a perfect top with rounded corners, but made for a convincing shape of top and windows.

The model was initially designed at a 1:20 scale, but then it was modified to roughly 1:11 scale to fit the speakers into the tires. Everything was scaled around the speakers fitting into the tires. This scale is about as large as our Dremel Idea Builder can make with the top piece of the topper being printed in one piece.

We are not going to show how to use design software as that is a topic for a class or a lot of trial and error as we have done over the years. However we did include a number of photos of the parts and outlined some of the processes used to get files ready for printing.

Step 2: Printing

We won't go into great detail on all that is involved with 3D Printing, since much of that is Printer and Slicer Dependent. But, we would like to point out a couple of things that we came across during this print.

Silk Red PLA. The Silk Red PLA is very reflective. As such, we had to increase the outer layers to hide the infills. We used 7 layers for the top and walls. We might have gotten away with less, but once you find something that you know works, stick with it. Especially when you only have 1 roll of Silk Red.

Tire Letters. The Tire Letters were actually printed in White Filament instead of painting. This was done using Cura's post processing by pausing the print at the 2nd to last layer and changing out the filament. The last layer does not appear to be a printing layer in Cura. To find out what the last layer was, we first sliced as we would regularly. Then, we added the post processing and re-sliced.

Fender Lights. Like the Tire Letters, the Fender Lights were printed with a different filament. But, the issue on these lights was that with 7 outer layers, the lights looked more like wrapping on a Birthday present, than it looked like a lens. So, to make the lights print the way we wanted them, we sliced the file 2 ways; with 7 layers, and with 3 layers.Then, we edited the GCode and found the Pause for the filament change. Copied everything from the Pause down from the 3 layer file and pasted over everything from the Pause down in the 7 layer file. Using the Pause as part of this works, as it includes setting the Extruder Reference when resuming.

Step 3: Assembling

All the painted parts were painted in Testors enamel model paints prior to being glued together. The inner door panel and the side view mirrors were glued on before assembly started. The outer door handle is printed onto the door. The back hatch T-handle, the windows and the window trim were glued before assembly as well. At this time you can also glue the magnets into the holes printed into the back of the grill.

The parts were glued together in the order shown below.

1. The “floor” is glued together from front to back. The front floor and back floor are raised above the level of the middle floor. Important: Spacers were used to keep the height right as the cabin floor is lower than the front and rear floors. The back floor butts up to the back of the seat. Note: The rear floor is not symetrical and the shorter end measured from the start of the wheel well is the side that glues up to the ledge behind the seat.

2. The front and rear fenders are glued to the rocker panel to complete an entire side as one piece. We used a straight edge to keep everything straight. On bigger printers the entire side and door can be printed as one.

3. The fender assemblies are glued to the floor panels. Make sure to use the grill to keep everything spaced right, but do not glue the grill in place as it is held in with magnets. We did not use the grill to space things so we had to sand roughly 2 mm from the sides of the grill to make it fit into the fenders.

4. The doors can now be glued in place. They should already have the door panels glued on as well as the side mirrors. You may note that our doors do not align properly. This is because the seat was too large. We added the door panels after the original design and forgot to make the seat smaller. The file has been fixed for the second build.

5. The front windshield frame goes in next.

6. All three topper windows; the sides and the rear hatch, can be glued together.

7. Steering wheel needs to be glued in before the top goes on.

8. The top can be centered and glued on as one piece with the top hanging a little past the back hatch. We glued the windows on to the rear fenders lined up with the door line. Then glued the top onto the windows which lines up with the top of the windshield.

9. Glue the lower grill piece on and then the front bumper. The front bumper is the one that has the stand off printed to it.

10. Attach the radio to its bracket with screws.

11. Align and glue radio bracket to the front fenders. The best way to do this is put in the grill and let the grill magnets hold the bracket in place while the glue sets.

12. Glue tailgate in place and then add the rear bumper. The rear bumper does not have a stand off printed to it.

13. Drill holes through the floor to line up with the speaker wire holes in the front wheel mounts.

14. Run speaker wires from the engine bay, through the holes in the floor, through the tire back cover, through the tire mount and solder to the speakers, paying attention to the + and - to match up with the + and - on the bluetooth audio decoder board.

15. Assemble front tires, speaker, tire mount with screws and glue on back cover. Snap in rim to front side of tire.

16. Pass inner bracket into rear tires and assemble rear tire, tire mount and inner backet. Snap in rim to front side of tire.

17. Screw tires and wheels to the body.

18. The Stereo was assembled and installed as shown in photos.

19. Place hood into position resting on radio bracket and firewall.

The grill was designed to be easily removed for access to the USB and other features. It is held in place by two small ⅛ x 1/16 inch neodymium rare earth magnets. These magnets grab onto the screws on the face plate that holds the stereo front to the Scout. This way the grill can be removed to use the USB port or other features of the radio interface and the hood removed to change the batteries when needed. The radio's remote control signal works through the front grill slots with the grill in place.

We cut windows out of plexiglass to give it even more of a realistic appearance. We traced a template of each window needed and cut out the shape to tape to the plexiglass. We then cut around the template with a jigsaw and sanded them to fit. We were not completely satisfied with the fit so window seal trim was added. The reason for not being satisfied is that it is difficult to cut small plexiglass parts without chipping the edges a little. The trim we added mostly hid the problem areas(chips and cracks).

Step 4: Sharing: STL Files

We believe that these files are now complete and updated with our best versions. We are now onto other projects so unless we hear from you we are no longer correcting errors or ommissions. We are happy to make any corrections that we find out need attention, and our plan is to make one more of these when time allows.

We are going to give this Scout Radio to our Sister as a gift. She too has a love of Scouts so we built this model for her. We love you Sis. Enjoy!

UPDATE #1: Added the missing RIM files.

UPDATE #2: Replaced the Scout Rockers file. New file is named Scout Rockers 071320.stl.

UPDATE #3: Replaced the Front and Rear Bumper files. New files have 072120 added to their names.

UPDATE #4: Added Rear Window Handle file, Assembly spacers file, and "Scout ii" Badge file.

UPDATE #5: Added "Scout Mirror SET" fiile which includes both a Left and Right Mirror.

Step 5: Conclusion

We hope that you too enjoyed this unique radio build. The sound from the speakers is So-So and would be helped greatly by more bass, but overall the build mostly came together as planned. The final product is recognizable as a Scout II and we had fun making it. You can request our files if you like Scouts or design your own radio in a similar fashion.

Fitment of parts was not perfect, but most of the files were repaired and the next one should be even better. One example is that we kind of wish that we had not painted the wing windows as they now appear to come up to the front of the windshield. Just a little detail, but we will change it on the next one.

Dimensions are: 17 cm Wide, 16 cm High, x 39 cm Long

Weight is approximately: 3.4 Lbs

If you have any questions or have any comments please let us know.

This project was a collaboration of Jaba 3D and Schockmade.